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A Christmas Carol Analysis

Decent Essays

Bret Wilson
C100 - Performance Assessment
Task 1
10/X/2017

A Christmas Carol

After reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens I would not help but associate this story with how I envision the Realism period. I have learned, through my research, that authors during the Realism period often wrote about struggles that resulted directly revolutions of the period. My initial thoughts on this story were that the author wanted to use Scrooge to symbolize greediness of people during the Christmas season and the negative direction that the world had taken. I feel as if the author is seeing many people forgetting to true meaning of Christmas and the why they celebrate it in the first place. There are several aspects of this story that interest me greatly, but the main reason is that it is still relevant today. Even now in the 21st century people are filled with greed and gluttony especially during the Christmas season. When first reading this story my thoughts were that "A Christmas Carol" was just that, a story about Christmas. Twenty-two film adaptations dating from 1901 to 2012 goes to show the impact it has had on our culture. After finding out that it had historical relevance outside of being a popular piece of literature my interest grew greatly. Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during the Realism period, which is very apparent with the tone in which the author depicts. During this time period there were several shifts in the economy throughout the United States and Europe. Several revolutions took place during the Realist period - the most memorable being the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was a time in which the economy of the United States really took a swing towards more technological advances, and shifted away from agriculture. Although this period had many economic, and monetary benefits there was much social suffering caused by the advances in technology. Due to the desire for rapid advancement in technology, workers were often overworked and underpaid. This really heightened "social classes", and lead to a lot of depression, and feelings of sadness, which I originally felt this poem exemplifies. After reading the author's biography it is very easy to see why

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